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Mean Genes

Mean Genes: From Sex to Money to Food: Taming Our Primal Instincts by Terry Burnham and Jay Phelan is an easy book to follow considering the scientific nature of the topic. The book explains how our primitive genes get us into trouble in the modern world. The reason we are overweight or don’t save money has its roots in biology. The book first gets us to understand how the attribute that is causing us trouble today, helped us survive as species to this point. The book then offers advice on how to construct ways to overcome our primal instincts when those instincts conflict with the modern world.

Overall, I liked this book. The authors did a great job explaining how those genes made us successful. I disagreed with some of their strategies for overcoming our instincts in the fat chapter (Olestra, Nutrasweet). But, I liked how they walked through the process of building your own methods for taming one’s instincts for modern times.